Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

All wayiqtols fall in strictly two categories:

1) most are past tense verbs; wa signifies tense reversal from yiqtol. That
conforms to the common usage of waw in Hebrew (e.g., w as 'but').
2) some are "and + future tense verb." That usage reflects deictic center
shift, e.g., "And [at that past moment] he would say..."
Usage of waw in 1 derives from 2.

That's by far the simplest explanation and fully complies with observed
facts.

Vadim Cherny


> I am sorry, but the point of this discussion escapes me. Are you
> saying that we do not know what wayiqtol is without the
> "demonstration" that it is a "deictic shift" from the "deictic center"?
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
> On Mar 6, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Vadim Cherny wrote:
>
> > It's really odd how we keep returning to the same subject over and
> > over
> > again.
> > I demonstrated some time ago that all "future tense" uses of qatal are
> > deictic shifts which are, incidentally, fully paralleled in Russian
> > and to
> > an extent in English. Such deictic shifts are pretty expected in
> > energized
> > narrative.
> > Likewise, wayiqtols are very clearly the past tense verbs, again
> > allowing
> > for the situation, typical in recital, that some wayiqtols means,
> > "and he
> > would say," a matter of deictic shift.
> > No other explanation passes the Occam's razor and, as Rolf
> > correctly noted,
> > is not consistent with earlier grammatical theories. The notion of
> > "prophetic perfect" is just funny because it presumes that other
> > (non-prophetic) Jews spoke a different dialect. Rolf is also right in
> > demanding explanations for the purported exceptions.
> >
> > Vadim Cherny
> > http://vadimcherny.org/hebrew/grammatical_function_hebrew_yiqtol.htm
> > http://vadimcherny.org/hebrew/hebrew_verb_paradigms_originated.htm
> >
> >
> >>> You paint a carricature of my position. In view of all the times
> >>> we have
> >>> discussed Hebrew verbs, you should be able to do better. I do not
> >>> deny
> >>> exceptions and a substandard use of language. What I challenge is
> >>> ad hoc
> >>> explanations in order to save a hypothesis. Therefore I make a
> > linguistic
> >>> demand that exceptions must be explained. For example, In the 19th
> > century
> >>> QATAL was viewed as past tense, and at the end of the century, as
> >>> past
> > tense
> >>> or the perfective aspect. It was discovered that several QATALs had
> > future
> >>> reference, and in order to save the theory, the "prophetic
> >>> perfect" was
> >>> postulated, the action was completed in the mind of the prophet.
> >>> (A. B.
> >>> Davidson (1894) "Hebrew syntax") is a good example. The view has
> >>> later
> > been
> >>> parroted by different grammarians, but I have never seen anyone
> >>> proving
> > the
> >>> claim.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Several quite reasonable explanations of this situation have been put
> >> forward, mostly based on the idea (for which there is good
> >> phonological
> >> evidence) that WAYYIQTOL comes from a quite different early
> >> Semitic verb
> >> form from regular YIQTOL.
> >>> The principle of a property being uncancellable is very simple:
> >>> Even a
> >>> shoolboy understands that the clauses "I will come yesterday" and "I
> > came
> >>> tomorrow" are ungrammatical. There is no purpose in trying to find a
> > special
> >>> situation where one of the clauses can be used.
> >>>
> >>
> >> "If I came tomorrow, I would be able to see him before he goes
> >> away the
> >> next day". This perfectly grammatical sentence proves that past
> >> tense is
> >> not uncancellable in English. Similarly there are perfectly
> >> grammatical
> >> constructions in which the past verb form in Hebrew is used with
> >> future
> >> reference, and vice versa. I don't see the difference in
> >> principle; if
> >> one is semantic, the other is semantic, if one is pragmatic, the
> >> other
> >> is pragmatic, or maybe this is not a meaningful distinction.
> >>
> >> In fact the reason why "If I came tomorrow..." is grammatical is that
> >> this is not really a past tense, but a subjunctive, but in English
> >> the
> >> past and the subjunctive have acquired almost identical forms. But
> >> the
> >> forms are distinct for the verb "to be", so "If I were in town
> >> tomorrow..." is historically more correct, not "If I was in town
> >> tomorrow..." Nevertheless, many speakers would say the latter because
> >> this subjunctive distinction is fading away. This is very similar
> >> to the
> >> evidence, not always consistent, from certain verb forms e.g.
> >> lamed-he
> >> verbs that WAYYIQTOL is "apocopated" which, according to a very
> >> plausible explanation, means that it comes from an originally
> >> separate
> >> verb paradigm which has mostly merged with regular YIQTOL.
> >>
> >>> If QATAL represents past tense, ...
> >>
> >> I am not arguing this, rather more like that QATAL is perfective
> >> aspect.
> >> I think we agree on this one, although we might disagree on precise
> >> definitions. My disagreement with you is largely on WAYYIQTOL,
> >> which I
> >> see as also perfective and semantically as well as morphologically
> >> distinct from imperfective YIQTOL.
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Peter Kirk
> >> E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
> >> Blog:    http://www.qaya.org/blog/
> >> Website: http://www.qaya.org/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
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